ANN - Ghost Ships and Magic Treasure!

[Zaxon]

3 hours ago, Nizam Adrienne said:

Last night, I received a message from pooball with a request for me to post something on his behalf on the forums. I was on the fence about posting it but I know a lot of you have questions about how and why this happened so I thought it would be worthwhile to share with you all here. He's not expecting forgiveness but wanted the opportunity to apologize and explain why he did what he did.

 

"Hello everyone its Pooball I know you all dislike me right now and im now banned in game and on the forums but I wanted to explain a few things to you all. Please take your time to read this.

Firstly I would like to apologise to everyone and come clean with this this cheat. I did know it was going on and even asked others to help me with it. Everyone who was taking part in this cheat has rightly been banned now. I first noticed that this could happen back during knightfall and at the time I did report this bug to Alex so that it could be fixed at the time Alex doubted me so I done it again and sent him the details but then never had a reply. Not trying to start a big argument now but I had seen others doing the same thing during knightfall. Now anyway a few months before knightfall I started doing a lot of trading I had a lot of people sending me money so that I could trade with more money meaning I could make more money buying bigger bulks. All my trading at the time was 100% not cheating and things was working out very well I had billions invested from many different people over Orbis. Anyway I started to hear a lot of people talking about this big nap ending so I thought great ill buy loads of rss and then sell them during the war. At the time rss was a lot higher in price so for example I bought roughly 500k alum at 2700 ppu. I had many trades like this and then the war hit Nova and I had to send everything away to be safe. Prices started to drop like crazy and I was making a huge loss when it was time to sell everything. Some safekeeping was never returned along with some money but it was my problem so I had to fix it. What money I did get back I ended up buying more rss with to lower the avg price that I had paid but this still didn’t work as nothing was selling on the market. I started to get a lot of angry people demanding for their investments back and managed to avoid paying anyone for along time. This really stressed me out as I was by that time doing so well with Nova and I didn’t want members to lose out due to my mistakes with non alliance issues.  I was getting 50+ dms in discord from angry people asking for their money back I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to just delete and reroll leaving people losing so much so I wondered what the glitch would do with trades. At this point I didn’t care if I was cheating I didn’t want to let anyone down North 14 knew I owed so much and was stressed about it all so he helped me. No other gov or member or any other players knew this until now so please do not punish them any more please accept them into your alliances and treat them like you would anyone else. I made a lot of good friends and again im sorry to you all. I would also Like to thank everyone who helped me and I wish you all well.

I would also like to add that Blink did not know about this even if we are brothers, He 100% would have made me not do it or even reported me. I dont expect any favours from anyone but he really should not be banned. I will stick around on Discord for a few days if anyone wants to talk to me."

 

 

2 hours ago, Viselli said:

Is there proof Pooball reported this to Alex back during knightfall and nothing was done? I'd like to see screenshots of that

EDIT: There is a screenshot of Poo reporting it to Alex -snip-

 

Some screenshots came to light today showing Poo reporting to Alex the exploit.  I redacted out the actual exploit so no idiots try and repeat it.

 

 

Edited June 3, 2019 by Zaxon

[Buorhann]

LOL, wow.

[Dio Brando]

Hahahah.

[Lu Xun]

Edited Pooball's post for readability and some grammar:

 

Quote

Hello, everyone! It's Pooball. I know you all dislike me right now, and I'm now banned in-game and on the forums, but I wanted to explain a few things to you all. Please take your time to read this.

Firstly, I would like to apologise to everyone and come clean with this this cheat. I did know it was going on and even asked others to help me with it. Everyone who was taking part in this cheat has rightly been banned now. I first noticed that this could happen back during Knightfall and at the time I did report this bug to Alex so that it could be fixed at the time. Alex doubted me so I done it again and sent him the details but then never had a reply. Not trying to start a big argument now but I had seen others doing the same thing during Knightfall.

Now anyway, a few months before Knightfall, I started doing a lot of trading. I had a lot of people sending me money so that I could trade with more money meaning I could make more money buying bigger bulks. All my trading at the time was 100% not cheating and things was working out very well. I had billions invested from many different people over Orbis.

Anyway, I started to hear a lot of people talking about this big nap ending, so I thought, great, I'll buy loads of rss and then sell them during the war. At the time, rss was a lot higher in price, so for example, I bought roughly 500k alum at 2700 ppu. I had many trades like this and then the war hit Nova and I had to send everything away to be safe.

Prices started to drop like crazy and I was making a huge loss when it was time to sell everything. Some safekeeping was never returned along with some money but it was my problem so I had to fix it. What money I did get back I ended up buying more rss with to lower the avg price that I had paid, but this still didn’t work as nothing was selling on the market.

I started to get a lot of angry people demanding for their investments back and managed to avoid paying anyone for along time. This really stressed me out, as I was by that time doing so well with Nova and I didn’t want members to lose out due to my mistakes with non alliance issues.  I was getting 50+ dms in discord from angry people asking for their money back.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to just delete and reroll leaving people losing so much so I wondered what the glitch would do with trades. At this point, I didn’t care if I was cheating, I didn’t want to let anyone down. North 14 knew I owed so much and was stressed about it all so he helped me.

No other gov or member or any other players knew this until now, so please do not punish them any more. Please accept them into your alliances and treat them like you would anyone else. I made a lot of good friends and again, I'm sorry to you all. I would also Like to thank everyone who helped me and I wish you all well.

I would also like to add that Blink did not know about this, even if we are brothers. He 100% would have made me not do it or even reported me. I don't expect any favours from anyone but he really should not be banned. I will stick around on Discord for a few days if anyone wants to talk to me.

 

Sounds like a classic rogue trader story (see: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ubs-trial-conviction/ubs-trader-jailed-for-seven-years-in-2-3-billion-fraud-idUSBRE8AJ0L320121120 ), failed trader resorts to illicit means to keep the game going. The biggest problem with the story was that 209bn in res was never necessary to pay back the investors. I'd have been surprised if Pooball had ever gotten over 50bn in investment capital, and to date, I've yet to see any Nova Riata investors complain about Poo's failed market skimming.

 

With regards to myself and Poo, this is just a massive disappointment. As with many stories of this type, Pooball had many chances to stop. Once the investment deficit was paid off, Poo could easily have halted, returned the money to investors, and pretended this had never happened. Instead, Nova Riata eventually generated 200bn in RSS that triggered the monitoring systems of half the game. He ended up plowing his cheatcoin back into himself which gave Akuryo and others much evidence to get him and other Nova Riata members banned, his brother banned, and his alliance rolled.

 

Poo's statement is thus correct in that it explains HOW the cheating began, but not why it continued. That's a less charitable and sympathetic story as these come, and it's basically a story of simple avarice and a massive deficit in self-control.

Edited June 3, 2019 by Inst

[namukara]

Hello everyone,

 

I know this has been shared publicly, so I thought it best to apologise now. At the time of the cheating being exposed, I made several comments on the Nova discord implying that I either didn't care about the cheating or endorsed it. Had I known about the scale of what was going on, I would not have made these messages, as being unable to see screencaptures I thought it was a small amount, and people were making something of a fuss over nothing. Knowing what I know now, my reaction would have been very different.

I do not endorse the actions of Pooball and anybody else who may have participated in, aided, or knew about the cheating while failing to report this, and I am sorry that I made these prior statements regarding a situation I fundamentally misunderstood, at a time when I was highly stressed in politics and war.

[Seeker]

55 minutes ago, namukara said:

Hello everyone,

 

I know this has been shared publicly, so I thought it best to apologise now. At the time of the cheating being exposed, I made several comments on the Nova discord implying that I either didn't care about the cheating or endorsed it. Had I known about the scale of what was going on, I would not have made these messages, as being unable to see screencaptures I thought it was a small amount, and people were making something of a fuss over nothing. Knowing what I know now, my reaction would have been very different.

I do not endorse the actions of Pooball and anybody else who may have participated in, aided, or knew about the cheating while failing to report this, and I am sorry that I made these prior statements regarding a situation I fundamentally misunderstood, at a time when I was highly stressed in politics and war.

On 5/31/2019 at 7:28 PM, Filmore said:

@Alex Does this message from a Nova member help change your mind about them 

Yeah, so what were you saying again?

[Dio Brando]

5 minutes ago, Seeker said:

Yeah, so what were you saying again?

You'll learn to ignore GVH. He is only a few shades better than the worst trolls Orbis has seen. The sad part is he isn't trolling.

[Seeker]

Just now, Dio Brando said:

You'll learn to ignore GVH. He is only a few shades better than the worst trolls Orbis has seen. The sad part is he isn't trolling.

I am aware of GVH, he's the same person who slandered me in numerous servers so I felt obliged to show his true colors  

[Dio Brando]

1 minute ago, Seeker said:

I am aware of GVH, he's the same person who slandered me in numerous servers so I felt obliged to show his true colors  

Haha, keep going Seeker. I don't mind

GVH is the same person who left Pantheon for Nova Riata when they were being hit, !@#$ed about people not doing anything, and came to my alliance-mates asking whether he could dodge the war by joining us. His worth to an alliance beyond the few tools he maintains is less than zero.

[Sigma]

-snipped-

Edited June 3, 2019 by ivk
i was stupid

[Dio Brando]

It happens

Edited June 3, 2019 by Dio Brando

[Lu Xun]

GVH was a morale case who kept on complaining about all the credits he was dumping into the game and how they were getting destroyed by NR. Technically my fault I couldn't keep him on side, but was he really worth it?

[PigInZen]

Jesus, there is so much to unpack with this incident. I see that many are focused on the perpetrator(s) and their participation in activities that are so blatantly in violation of the terms of use of this game. Rightly so, I might add. But this does raise, at least for me, what I consider to be bigger questions regarding this game and the operation thereof.

For background, I have 25 years of experience in IT, mostly in endpoint management but I do know systems and have participated in large projects for multiple Fortune 500 companies. Some serious issues have been highlighted because of this incident from a systems operation and control perspective. I do not have insight into how Alex is running his operation so there I am probably making multiple false assumptions. The point is that the questions are being raised, not that I am providing answers to them. 

To start:

1. It appears there is a systems-wide lack of verification and process control with regards to player actions. Apparently a player was able to spawn massive amounts of resources without admin notification. This implies that there are no processes in place with regards to potential abuse vectors. I'm talking about a scheduled process/script that monitors resources and production by comparing current production to long-term trends and against outlying potentials (i.e. 1st and 2nd std dev potentials). Since there are theoretical limits to the amount of change that *could* occur to production in game (i.e., maximum production capability per nation and game-wide) this is simply a programming problem, and does not have any problem in implementation. It's totally doable and the apparent fact that it hasn't been done is concerning.

2. It also appears that there is documented proof of a similar exploit in use in a prior self-reported example by the original perpetrator. This points to a lack of control over session interaction with clients and the game system itself. I can only assume from face value and the example of nuking an opponent twice by simultaneously employing two separate and discreet clients that there is no system in place for identifying unique sessions and therefore multiple clients could indeed interact with the game within a relatively short period of time and conduct the same operation without failure. This points to a lack of database interaction control. Again, this is simply a systems design and programming problem, not an implementation problem unless the game system itself is really limiting the implementation.

3. The kicker for me is that this is a for-profit operation. There is an expectation by a paying customer that the game will operate within a set of expected behavior - that is, that you will gain an advantage by purchasing something within the game that someone will not be able to gain for free. Obviously this exploit calls this expectation into question and raises the most important problem of all: that the fundamental balance of the game is easily exploitable because of poor design and implementation. While I have purchased credits in the past I will no longer do so due to the serious administrative impact this exploit has highlighted.

In short, this game needs to be run better. Things like this are avoidable. If asked for my advice it would be to hire professional staff to constantly evaluate the backend operation and question where potential exploits might be found, build reporting and verification systems to highlight exploits that were never considered, and to be more responsive to reports of exploits. LOL, I'm shaking my head that the original report was not acted upon from a systems perspective. To continue to allow customers to purchase credits while not addressing that issue is unethical and highly problematic.

 

TL;DR, old man rants about things he cannot easily change. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[namukara]

Seeker, if I was going to spend time making up lies to slander people with, I would pick a considerably better target than you. I have nothing more to say to you, because I don't want to get into flaming territory.

[PDunny]

1 hour ago, PigInZen said:

Jesus, there is so much to unpack with this incident. I see that many are focused on the perpetrator(s) and their participation in activities that are so blatantly in violation of the terms of use of this game. Rightly so, I might add. But this does raise, at least for me, what I consider to be bigger questions regarding this game and the operation thereof.

For background, I have 25 years of experience in IT, mostly in endpoint management but I do know systems and have participated in large projects for multiple Fortune 500 companies. Some serious issues have been highlighted because of this incident from a systems operation and control perspective. I do not have insight into how Alex is running his operation so there I am probably making multiple false assumptions. The point is that the questions are being raised, not that I am providing answers to them. 

To start:

1. It appears there is a systems-wide lack of verification and process control with regards to player actions. Apparently a player was able to spawn massive amounts of resources without admin notification. This implies that there are no processes in place with regards to potential abuse vectors. I'm talking about a scheduled process/script that monitors resources and production by comparing current production to long-term trends and against outlying potentials (i.e. 1st and 2nd std dev potentials). Since there are theoretical limits to the amount of change that *could* occur to production in game (i.e., maximum production capability per nation and game-wide) this is simply a programming problem, and does not have any problem in implementation. It's totally doable and the apparent fact that it hasn't been done is concerning.

2. It also appears that there is documented proof of a similar exploit in use in a prior self-reported example by the original perpetrator. This points to a lack of control over session interaction with clients and the game system itself. I can only assume from face value and the example of nuking an opponent twice by simultaneously employing two separate and discreet clients that there is no system in place for identifying unique sessions and therefore multiple clients could indeed interact with the game within a relatively short period of time and conduct the same operation without failure. This points to a lack of database interaction control. Again, this is simply a systems design and programming problem, not an implementation problem unless the game system itself is really limiting the implementation.

3. The kicker for me is that this is a for-profit operation. There is an expectation by a paying customer that the game will operate within a set of expected behavior - that is, that you will gain an advantage by purchasing something within the game that someone will not be able to gain for free. Obviously this exploit calls this expectation into question and raises the most important problem of all: that the fundamental balance of the game is easily exploitable because of poor design and implementation. While I have purchased credits in the past I will no longer do so due to the serious administrative impact this exploit has highlighted.

In short, this game needs to be run better. Things like this are avoidable. If asked for my advice it would be to hire professional staff to constantly evaluate the backend operation and question where potential exploits might be found, build reporting and verification systems to highlight exploits that were never considered, and to be more responsive to reports of exploits. LOL, I'm shaking my head that the original report was not acted upon from a systems perspective. To continue to allow customers to purchase credits while not addressing that issue is unethical and highly problematic.

 

TL;DR, old man rants about things he cannot easily change. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

I am a professional QA and would be willing to assist for free. I reported to Alex yesterday (or maybe the day before) the potential for this issue to continue to exist based on what I know about the system. 

 

All systems have bugs, that is acceptable. There is no way around that. Addressing them or at least monitoring the abuse of them should be the admin's responsibility. It's not an easy thing to uncover and track defects, especially race conditions but this is just borderline gross negligence with the amount of people who has mentioned that they have reported similar issues to Alex in the past.

 

Alex has a rather strong development community within the community that he could leverage. He should take advantage of that.

[PigInZen]

8 minutes ago, PDunny said:

I am a professional QA and would be willing to assist for free. I reported to Alex yesterday (or maybe the day before) the potential for this issue to continue to exist based on what I know about the system. 

 

All systems have bugs, that is acceptable. There is no way around that. Addressing them or at least monitoring the abuse of them should be the admin's responsibility. It's not an easy thing to uncover and track defects, especially race conditions but this is just borderline gross negligence with the amount of people who has mentioned that they have reported similar issues to Alex in the past.

 

Alex has a rather strong development community within the community that he could leverage. He should take advantage of that.

I don't disagree with this one bit but it's important for a paid service to hire professionals.

[ArcKnox]

2 hours ago, PigInZen said:

 

[Spaceman Thrax]

I definitely don't condone or even understand why someone would cheat in a game like this, but it makes more sense to me that someone might if they literally report it to admin and he does nothing about it.

Pooball does not come off like a mastermind here. I think his fear that other people might be benefiting from that same exploit is actually quite valid. And he tried to do the right thing about it initially, only to be failed by admin.

He deserves the ban and I personally really revile anyone who would put their membership in the position he did. But ultimately he's not who I blame for this happening.

[Lu Xun]

1 hour ago, PigInZen said:

I don't disagree with this one bit but it's important for a paid service to hire professionals.

Strictly speaking, we aren't even Alex's customers, we're users and payments are made as donations. We have minimal rights as donors, which is why PnW and CN both use "donation" systems instead of payment systems.

 

Alex already has the volunteer services of a cybersecurity expert (ss23), but I'd think that cashflow doesn't exceed 1mn a year right now. However, as the game continues to grow, gamebreaking exploits are going to be detected more often and at least basic hardening should be implemented.

The sad thing is, even Cyber Nations has a system built in, what with Marks' notoriously bad coding practice, to prevent the particular exploit Pooball was using. It's amusing that Alex doesn't even have that rudimentary block.

[Raoul Duke]

An especially long-lived American Cockroach might live 2 years.

The average human (worldwide) lives 71 years.

So if you break that down I’m 1420 years old in Cockroach years and in those years I have learned at least 9 things that seem to be true.

1.       Old men send young men to die for silly and often un-defined reasons.

2.       There isn’t much better in life than air-conditioning.

3.       If a system can be cheated, it will be cheated on occasion.

4.       Nylon-based socks aren’t good for much.

5.       Humans are often-times mean creatures and even more mean when they are sheltered by anonymity.

6.       The difference between the top of the food chain and the middle is often circumstance.

7.       If you tell a man or woman they should be mad about something, they probably will be if you let them pretend to think on it for a while.

8.       A volcano can’t be stopped. It will do as it will.

9.       Death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you but it is probably top 10.

Now I think at least two (maybe three) of these “truths” apply to this situation.

 

[Redarmy]

The only solution is for Sheepy to ban everyone, thus freeing the PnW community to go outside or something.  

[PigInZen]

Hi ArcKnox. I've missed you.

 

Also, the original Dio Brando had much to say about game admins. Much that was correct. 

[Lu Xun]

1 hour ago, Inst said:

Strictly speaking, we aren't even Alex's customers, we're users and payments are made as donations. We have minimal rights as donors, which is why PnW and CN both use "donation" systems instead of payment systems.

 

Alex already has the volunteer services of a cybersecurity expert (ss23), but I'd think that cashflow doesn't exceed 1mn a year right now. However, as the game continues to grow, gamebreaking exploits are going to be detected more often and at least basic hardening should be implemented.

The sad thing is, even Cyber Nations has a system built in, what with Marks' notoriously bad coding practice, to prevent the particular exploit Pooball was using. It's amusing that Alex doesn't even have that rudimentary block.

Also, one other thing, considering exploits that I have known, (possible exploit removed)

Edited June 3, 2019 by Inst

[Dio Brando]

PiZ sharing his wisdom makes me happy. 

[Buorhann]

2 hours ago, Redarmy said:

The only solution is for Sheepy to ban everyone, thus freeing the PnW community to go outside or something.  

Or play another game sir.